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Neo Burmese Invasion
Five months ago, Mr. Somporn Surivong, 43, was a farmer in a small remote village in Burirum province in the northeastern of Thailand or Isan as everybody called it. He decided to pack a bag containing of very few and only necessary belongings and jumped onto a cheapest bus available heading for Bangkok after receiving a phone call from a friend who promised to help him getting a job in a factory in Samutprakarn.
Although it was higher cost of living in the capital city, Mr. Somporn, a single man with no grand plan for life, hoped that he could saved every the single penny he earned and if he were lucky, too, he would have saved enough for a dowry, in the that event he met a future wife out there.
An acquaintance from his village had picked him up at the Bangkok bus terminal Mor Chit and took him to a squalid apartment, where a rent room of 10 by 12 meters was packed with Isan-friend workers. There were five men living together.
As promised, the friend who invited him to Bangkok got him hired in a flip-flop manufacturing company.
Mr. Somporn said he was lucky to get hired by the company, because there were very few Thais workers over there.
“The factory doesn’t want Thai laborers,” he said. “They can hire the Burmese much cheaper.”
The government’s policy during the past decade had tried to promote the country economic growth by wooing international companies in the technology and automotive industries to invest in Thailand, but the country’s supply of human resources are limited.
Job creation had also lured skilled workers away from low-paid small and family-owned businesses to the better-paid companies, as well as luring unskilled, old-age, and illegal immigrant workers from the neighbor countries to find their opportunity in replacing them.
Like Mr. Somporn, most unskilled workers are poor farmers and would take any jobs offered to them. However, they have to have connection with insiders in order to get employed.
“The Burmese have connections with their Burmese inside man as well,” Mr. Somporn said. “If you were unemployed and you know no one in there, I can one hundred percent guarantee you that you’ll be very unlucky. The personnel department prefers to recruit only somebody with a solid stamp of employee’s endorsed.”
Mr. Somporn said he was the only Thai worker in the factory’s entire production line.
“I’ve never heard people over there speaking Thai, except for in the offices,” he said.
The flip-flop manufacturing company is an old business of its owner family. It management had been deteriorated since the family entered the hotel and serviced apartment businesses.
The plant was left behind and it was once resolved to move all the operations to a remote province in Vietnam where labor costs are much cheaper, but the plan had been put on shelf as none of the family member is willing to go there.
Almost abandoned, the factory is still in operation only on the wish of its founder, who is the most ancient people in the family, and Thais workers had begun leaving the organization for better-paid jobs one after another.
The company’s new management had resolved the problem by illegally importing labors from the neighbor countries, mostly from Burma.
It was a turning point that it had created the society of Burmese workers. The apartment which lived Mr. Somporn, once flocked with the Thai folks, was now saturated with Burmese dwellers.
“I like the Burmese more,” Mr. Somporn said. “I had been here in my younger days. The apartment was now more peaceful with the Burmese dwellers. Thai workers always make noises late in night and on the weekend. Some times they quarrel with each another and fight. And some time I heard gun fired. The Burmese won’t do that. They don’t want Thai police to come to them. Last month, they’ve just picked up 150 ones from here.”
Thailand’s crime watch has accused that the Burmese migrant workers are mostly the troublemaker and caused the social panic.
A fresh study shows that there were over 1,000 criminal reports in recent years in connection with the alien workers, according to researcher Kulachada Chaipipat.
But she said those cases related with migrant workers human rights violation had been overlooked by both authorities and the media.
The media in particular, had separated them from the locals by using words like ‘unlawful’, ‘dangerous’, ‘migrant’ etc. on their covers.
“I do not agree with what they said. I’ve been in Thailand for over ten years now and I make no problem,” said Mon Teh, a long-time illegal immigrant dweller.
Despite no Social Security benefits, Mr. Teh insisted that there was no way he would return to his motherland, even if he was arrested and deported by the Thai police.
“I’ll find my way back anyway,” he said. “It’s impossible to earn as much as I am here in Burma. People liberty is also limited. You aren’t allowed to use mobile phone and watch TV, but you can do anything here.”
Mr. Teh said he has got a family member who also wanted to cross the border for Bangkok, but had been arrested by the Thai authorities, and he would tell him to come over again, if the company recruited more laborers.
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[...] Neo Burmese InvasionThe plant was left behind and it was once resolved to move all the operations to a remote province in Vietnam where labor costs are much cheaper, but the plan had been put on shelf as none of the family member is willing to go there. … [...]
[...] Neo Burmese InvasionThe plant was left behind and it was once resolved to move all the operations to a remote province in Vietnam where labor costs are much cheaper, but the plan had been put on shelf as none of the family member is willing to go there. … [...]
[...] Neo Burmese InvasionThe plant was left behind and it was once resolved to move all the operations to a remote province in Vietnam where labor costs are much cheaper, but the plan had been put on shelf as none of the family member is willing to go there. … [...]
[...] Neo Burmese InvasionThe plant was left behind and it was once resolved to move all the operations to a remote province in Vietnam where labor costs are much cheaper, but the plan had been put on shelf as none of the family member is willing to go there. … [...]
[...] Neo Burmese InvasionThe plant was left behind and it was once resolved to move all the operations to a remote province in Vietnam where labor costs are much cheaper, but the plan had been put on shelf as none of the family member is willing to go there. … [...]
[...] Neo Burmese InvasionThe plant was left behind and it was once resolved to move all the operations to a remote province in Vietnam where labor costs are much cheaper, but the plan had been put on shelf as none of the family member is willing to go there. … [...]
[...] Neo Burmese InvasionThe plant was left behind and it was once resolved to move all the operations to a remote province in Vietnam where labor costs are much cheaper, but the plan had been put on shelf as none of the family member is willing to go there. … [...]
[...] Neo Burmese InvasionThe plant was left behind and it was once resolved to move all the operations to a remote province in Vietnam where labor costs are much cheaper, but the plan had been put on shelf as none of the family member is willing to go there. … [...]
[...] Neo Burmese InvasionThe plant was left behind and it was once resolved to move all the operations to a remote province in Vietnam where labor costs are much cheaper, but the plan had been put on shelf as none of the family member is willing to go there. … [...]